The prior art of clothesline drying apparatus includes many varied constructions designed to support a clothesline by use of a rigid or collapsible frame. Examples of these constructions are disclosed by the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,285 to Wuster; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,107 to Servadio; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,472 to Carnera; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,434,898 to McCarthy; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,988 to Friedeberg; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,732,987 to Adams; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,675,785 to Martin; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,335,873 to Lowe; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,215,279 to Leo; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,206,037 to Woolsey; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,258 to Cavalleri; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,145,965 to Stein; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,139,190 to Shore; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,075,648 to Bereza; PA1 Israel Patent No. 65716 to Shani et al.; PA1 Israel Patent No. 53613 to Hills Industries Ltd.; PA1 Israel Patent No. 41103 to Wiener; PA1 Israel Patent No. 20226 to Aarons; PA1 Israel Patent No. 21429 to Meron; PA1 Israel Patent No. 17856 to Ben Zvi et al.; and PA1 Israel Patent No. 20041 to Lazari et al. PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,076 to Stamper; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,558 to Stamper; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,750,891 to Decorato; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,389,808 to Cavalleri; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,263,939 to Menken; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,193,212 to Lotta; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,190,455 to Hartshorn et al.; and PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,323 to Kliss.
Other known clothesline drying apparatus constructions relate to pulley arrangements and retractable or hidden clotheslines, which may be withdrawn from a receptacle when needed and returned thereto automatically under spring tension. Examples of these constructions include the following patents:
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,477,660 to Abraham and 3,173,548 to Hesener, there are disclosed multi-line structures in which a plurality of clotheslines is dispensed from a spring-loaded roller. Spring tension adjustment is provided to reduce line sag, but this involves complicated spring mounting arrangements within the roller and eventual spring fatigue, reducing effectiveness.
In applications where clothesline drying apparatus is placed outside an apartment balcony or porch, a common feature of all prior art constructions is that the rack or frame is generally stationary. A plurality of clotheslines are mounted in parallel orientation, each looped about a pair of pulleys allowing for movement independent of the other clotheslines, by a grasping and pulling motion of the hand.
In the common arrangement, in which several clotheslines are placed side by side on a horizontal frame, the individual clotheslines supported by a pair of pulleys are generally provided with a degree of slack. Thus, adjacent clotheslines tend to interfere with each other, and are therefore not placed close together. This results in an ineffective utilization of the clothesline drying space available.
In addition, the lower run of the loop is often in contact with wash items hanging from the upper run, and this tends to interfere with smooth movement of the loop. In many cases, the loop does not move at all since the pulleys have become rusted after long exposure to the rain, and the loop material itself is dried and no longer readily flexible. Thus, the user is required to reposition along the clothesline length while hanging out or removing the laundry, in order to reach all of the available drying area, and this involves a great deal of body motion.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide clothesline drying apparatus which more effectively utilizes the drying space which it occupies, eliminates hard-to-reach clothesline drying areas, and generally simplifies the task of hanging the laundry to dry and removing it.